RV7 Flight: Joseph, Oregon

Hubby and I took our first flying adventure of 2012 on Saturday. We decided to fly to Joseph, Oregon, a tiny, touristy town in Wallowa County, in the Northeast corner of Oregon.

Spring is beginning to make a show in our area, and so the ag planes were out in full force. We made our getaway in between three ag planes (the yellow one) that were buzzing the field. (They were coming in to refuel and reload their planes with dry fertilizer.)

 In a 200 mph airplane, it took us 30-40 minutes to get to Joseph, which is nestled at the foothills of the towering Willowa mountain range.

Still plenty of snow on the Willowas.

This is Willowa Lake. About 10 years ago, we flew into Joseph with our mountain bikes in the back of our other plane (which we sold in 2004), a Maule M-7. We then pedaled from the airport to the tip of the lake where there is a lodge, campgrounds and deer that are so tame, you can pet them! It was an ambitious bicycle ride.


Our current airplane is big enough to hold only collapsible mini bikes in the back. The minis are fine for short treks, but you wouldn't want to ride 25 miles or more, and so riding to the tip of the lake was out.

Mule deer are everywhere.
We passed one lovely, lovely old home whose beauty was so marred by an 8-10' white vinyl fence surrounding it.

We were wondering why the owners had done that, but then we realized it was to keep the pesky mule deer off their property.

Deer are terrible pests where we live, too. People can't grow gardens because the deer come along and eat everything.

There are a couple of exquisite bronze sculptures in town. This one is of Chief Joseph.

Rodeo plays big in the area, and look at this amazing rodeo sculpture.

Besides tourism, Joseph is a logging and farming community. The town of Enterprise is the county seat, and so the county fairgrounds are not located in Joseph. But we did see a huge grandstand for RODEO.

Most of the tourist traps are not yet open. I'd estimate only 25% of the town's businesses were open on this last Saturday in March.

But Arrowhead Chocolates was open.

They were advertising hot, homemade marionberry scones. Hubby and I decided to have a mocha and share a scone.

The chocolate makers hand dipping truffles.

Arrowhead's mochas are made with the rich chocolate that they use in their candies. You have a choice of dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate. For milk, you can choose regular milk or chocolate milk.

Here's some of their candies, which cost $1.00 each.

Hubby and I aren't into candy, but we couldn't pass up the hot, homemade marionberry scone.

Here's our mochas and our scone with freshly whipped cream. Hubby wanted to be sure to get his IPad in the picture. The IPad contains, among other things, the sectional charts and airport guides for the entire U.S.

We've been told that all airline pilots are navigating now with the sectional charts on their IPads, which eliminates having to carry around unweildy paper copies sectionals and airport handbooks.